Flowers With Extra Special Powers
by lalalyds2
Summary: An AU based on the tumblr post "Person A owns a flower shop and person B comes storming in one day, slaps 20 bucks on the counter and says "How do I passive-aggressively say f*** you in flower?" featuring Iracebeth and Time. Possibly the ugliest summary I've ever written, but I beg you to give this story a chance, as the author (me) is a needy child fueled by compliments.


_Hello everyone! So I saw this tumblr post (_ _post/147210660419/flower-shop-au)_ _and was inspired to write an AU about it, because apparently I haven't left enough stories unfinished already and needed to start something else.  
_ _Ah well.  
_ _I know this is a rather long story, but it's a oneshot! I can't leave this one unfinished, as it's already done. ;)  
_ _And it's mostly fluff! Wonders never cease. ;p  
_ _As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on this story!_

 _Enjoy._

* * *

There's something about the sight of fresh flowers in the muggy streets of Manhattan that's pure fantasy.

Hope in petals, lighting up 26th Street.

It's one of the only reasons he stays in this city of angry sirens and angry people and general haziness from all the pipe dreams going up in smoke.

Germantown, Maryland is not quite so wispy and sad a place as this. But he's got a responsibility to the one he's constantly chasing after, a responsibility to work as long and as hard as he can.

Every second he's earning money, it's a second he's earning for his world, his little sister.

A pale slip of a thing who stole his heart the minute he saw her, and lies dreaming on and on as an expensive machine keeps her breathing.

No matter how he searches, no matter the fancy doctors and extensive bills, they tell him he can't cure her or eradicate her inevitable departure from the world.

It's only a matter of time, they say.

He says they should go back to playing doctor in kindergarten.

Still, he's starting to feel the stiffness of hard work in his joints, they creak and groan like rusted machinery, and he wonders how long he can keep this up. He doesn't sleep, doesn't slow down, just keeps moving forward. Works a flower shop because he's as desperate for hours as they are to give them, and secretly wishes a break from this constant routine.

He wraps bows around bouquets for lovers, knows when they're going to break up from the color of roses alone, carefully arranges mourning lilies for those deceased or soon to be, and never feels for any of the people behind the flowers.

His coworker and only friend Wilkins always wonders aloud if he's secretly a human-robot hybrid. Some long-haired, bearded automaton.

He laughs along, feels frozen and stiff, and wonders that too.

* * *

He needs to sleep.

Preferably for years.

All he's going to get is six hours of bliss and seven cups of coffee.

At least it's closing time. Why a flower shop needs to stay open till midnight, he'll never know, but he shouldn't complain. He's the only one willing to take the hours, and overtime pay is worth it.

He's in the back, cataloguing, when the little greeting chimes jingle ominously against the glass door.

It's not exactly their usual clamor, and he just prays it's not a serial killer, burglar, or drunk.

Each are frustrating in their own right, and he just wants to go home.

"Sorry," he calls out. "We're just about closing."

"I'll give you 200 bucks," a throaty voice answers.

That gives him pause. He pokes his head out from the plastic curtains and nearly drops the potted orchid that's slipping from his awe-slacked grasp.

There she is, in the overhead light, in the flesh.

Iracebeth Reine, the best horror novelist in New York and the 21st century, in his shop, sucking violently on a cigarette.

He's read her every book, twice. She gives Stephen King a run for his money in disturbing, puts Poe to shame in her prose. The only writer to send more than a shiver down his spine, her _Roses_ the only book to make him shriek aloud.

And she's even prettier than her jacket cover picture.

"What can I help you with?" He swallows nervously. He's never served celebrity before, what's more his _favorite_.

"How do I passive-aggressively say "Fuck you" in flower?"

The orchid drops.

He swears vehemently, it'd fallen on his foot.

Dirt scatters across the white tiles in dogged determination to cause the most stress possible, and he just knows he's steaming red from embarrassment and a 110 percent level of done.

He sighs and spares a glance in her direction.

She is unimpressed and expectant.

One delicate hand clenches the glowing and abused stubbin of a cigarette, the other rests under a pointy elbow, propping it up.

Distressed fingers tap an agitated dirge against black-clothed ribs.

There is a mess in her eyes, but he'd rather deal with that than the mess on the floor.

"Keep your money," he says, not unkindly. "I'm going to lock up now, and head to the nearest bar as fast as possible. I suggest you join me. You look like you could use a drink."

She huffs, but waits just the same. Doesn't so much as shiver in the biting winds of the night.

He holds the door open for her and wonders what sort of acid trip he's on tonight.

Because he's buying a drink for Iracebeth Reine, and if it's still a thing to have a crush then he's had one on her for nearly forever, and she's smoking another Camel, and it's a dream come to life.

He just prays he doesn't wake up.

* * *

"You're shitting me."

He's staring into the bottom of his seventh glass and doesn't even care about the hangover sure to bang in his skull tomorrow, because the story he's just been told is more scandalous than any fiction published from the storyteller sitting before him.

"I'm not."

"But with your own _sister_?"

The fiery-headed creature shrugs blithely, her seven glasses drained, a neatly stacked wall between them.

"It couldn't be anyone else. She's named under Miri, and everyone knows that's Mirana's nickname."

He didn't know that, didn't even know she had a sister, but he's not going to argue with the tipsy firecracker.

Her words bounce around in his muddled brain for a minute before incredulity clicks.

"Wait, you found out your husband's cheating through _texts_? That's paranoia, not proof."

"It's proof," she says, poking her tongue out at him childishly. "No text that says ' _Wear that thing I like, see you tonight_ ' could possibly be innocent!"

Betrayal flashes heavy over her striking features, she takes a drag like it's a lifeline.

"Well, it might not be your sister," he says weakly. Her gaze is tired and piercing.

"Tim—it's Tim, isn't it?"

"Timothy, actually."

" _Tim_ , kindly butt out."

He laughs, hands up in surrender, tilts back an eighth drink.

"Maybe I can weed her out," Iracebeth muses, head resting on a pale hand, fingers drumming on her cheek. "I know the wench likes flowers, sends him disgusting texts defining what his last bouquet signified, all the time. Never sends me flowers, anymore."

She mutters the last part darkly.

"Not so much as a courtesy flower to let me know he's fucking some other twat on the side."

"I don't think there's any flower that signifies that," he says, trying and failing to hide his amusement, her accent makes the profanity almost genteel, and it's adorable.

"So there's no flower that says ' _I know what you did, and I'm going to write a horrific death for you and that hangnail of a husband in my next book_ '?"

He laughs outright at that. He can't help it. Her irate fury is both terrifying and harmless and cute. A weird combination to be sure, but he finds it very alluring.

Or maybe he's just slightly drunk.

"Unfortunately not, but geraniums mean stupidity, foxgloves for insincerity, meadowsweet for uselessness, yellow carnations mean you have disappointed me, and orange lilies for hatred. It's striking and subtle, _and_ full of loathing."

"I think poisoned barbs around red roses could have the same effect."

He laughs again.

Never has murder sounded so charming.

"Maybe so, but then you'd end up in jail. And I'm selfish, I need another book to read. You can't publish from prison."

She giggles at that, a sniffly little sound that pauses all motion and very nearly stops his heart, but it morphs into a gulp of pain.

Sorrow swims like minnows in the chocolate oceans of her eyes.

Horror fills him, more than he's ever felt from any gory tale, fills him to the brim until all reason and rationality's left him with only the burning desire to fix her and somehow he's leaning forward.

Kissing her.

Hands cupping defined cheeks, fingers folding through feathery tendrils of auburn.

She tastes like ash and whiskey and a dash of vanilla.

She tastes like fiction.

A sweet sensation, then stinging.

She's slapped him.

His hands release, rubbing the smushed beard, calming the bristly hair back into its un-squashed state.

"Sorry," he mutters, chagrined.

She's wincing, eyes flicking up at his, half-formed surprise and apology in her confused gaze.

"I'm married," she says instead, standing, tossing a wad of crumpled bills onto the table. He stands too, head lowered, inwardly cursing his alcohol-induced bravery.

"I know."

Little hands pinch his facial hair, his head is pulled up a tiny bit, pulled down as she kisses him.

Kisses him quite thoroughly, with teeth and tongue and a delicious little moan that slides down his throat and curls up in his chest.

When she finally pulls back he's breathless, the need for oxygen a distant memory, lips ripe and ready to bruise.

"You're a weird one," she states sloppily, a careless hand wiping the lipstick smudge from the side of his mouth.

"I know that too."

He's dazed, and her quirked grin is enough to stop his entire universe.

"I like that."

* * *

He wakes to the shrieking of his alarm clock, an aching head the only proof last night was not indeed a dream his overworked brain had cooked up to help combat reality.

She'd kissed him once more before cursing a storm and running off.

Not the first time someone's run out on him, but hers left a more rememberable impression.

He thinks about her as his coffee brews, the taste of her mixing with the dark liquid.

The way she'd burst into his shop lingers as he sweeps up the dirt and broken petals.

People come in, smell the flowers, leave with pre-arranged bouquets set out earlier.

Time slows to a crawl as he waits for something to happen.

She's not coming back.

He knows it, could tell from the way she'd run away in panic.

She's in love with a man he doesn't know.

But just because he hasn't met the cheating bastard, doesn't mean he's a right to steal her, nor that she's asked to be stolen or even belonged to anyone in the first place.

He should accept it, appreciate the experience for what it was, a lovely dream, and move on.

He has his sister to think about and a job to do. Moping won't change anything, and it certainly won't help his customer service.

Three days into convincing himself he's never going to see her again, the door chimes again.

"I need those "Fuck you" flowers, and pronto."

A customer clucks her disapproval at the swear, her daughter giggling into impressionable young hands.

They leave without buying a thing, but Timothy couldn't give a damn because the caramel voice is back and the chocolate eyes are staring into his and they are positively sparkling with mischief.

He's so relieved he closes shop, boldly takes her hand, and pulls her into the city's world of flowers.

* * *

"An entire flower shop, and you're out of supplies."

Incredulity laced through the sentence, her arm tucked securely around his as she compliantly lets him weave between the different vendors.

"Foxgloves and meadowsweets aren't the most common order, I'll have you know."

"I should have stuck with the poisoned roses."

He snorts at the malicious pun, pulls her along a little farther, stops at the brightly colored cart.

Flowers wave greetings, petals at attention, the mixed scents tickling his nose.

A purple foxglove catches his eye, innocent among the other bowing tulips. Iracebeth taps his arm when he picks two.

"We're going to need more of those. Lots more."

She grimaces at his quizzical expression.

"Before I kicked my _darling_ husband out onto the streets, I made him reveal the tart's name."

"Was it—"

"Wasn't Mirana."

She rolls her eyes at his sigh of relief.

"However, there are _five_ other ladies he's been gracing his presence with, and since my PR manager vetoed murder, flowers it is."

He orders a crateful.

He turns, finds a mangled daisy clutched in her shaking hands, the miniature trembles the only sign of damage, the only hint that she's not as solid as she pretends.

He pays for the daisy too.

She tosses it aside in favor of a smoke, curses as her phone rings from a text.

"Shit, I gotta go. Call me when the flowers are done. I have some things I'd like to say in the cards, things that can only be written by hand," she says as she whips a sharpie out of her pocket, hastily writing ten numbers on the top of his hand.

"Ta."

And then she's gone, leaving a mixed scent of florals and burnt tobacco in her wake.

* * *

She comes to the shop five hours after he'd called, a bonafide feather quill in one hand, inkwell in the other.

Barely mumbles a hello to him as she surveys his work.

He tries desperately not to wring his hands together in nerves.

It's not every day you're judged by a famous writer.

"They look very...cheerful." She says finally.

"You said passive-aggressive."

She nods once in approval, winks as she leans forward to write on the blank white cards meticulously tied to the green stalks.

Elegant swoops, sharp lines, _Fuck you_ in the most refined calligraphy.

She blows on the drying ink, a self-satisfied little smirk twisting her lips as she admires her handiwork.

"Very lovely, and insulting," he compliments.

"I am quite proud of my writing skills, I must say."

He rolls his eyes and she outright grins at the electric sight. Leans forward even more, he gulps as her shirt's neckline slips lower.

"Why are you always here?" She asks bluntly.

Stops.

Thinks about her question.

Blushes.

"Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Just curious."

"I'm just a simple machine, in need of working hours, no matter how often they are."

"Why do you need to work so much?" She asks, chin propped up on a hand.

He grins and avoids the subject.

"We can't all be successful writers."

She laughs, helps him stick the flowers in the fridge for delivery.

"I'm just a woman with the imagination of a serial killer and the work ethic of a cat. Thank goodness for society's need for fictional violence, otherwise I'd be out of a job."

He chuckles, and a comfortable silence settles in the air, slowly dissipates, an awkward sense of finished business replaces it.

There's nothing left to do, except perhaps exchange farewells.

He can't bring himself to start though.

She takes pity on him, grabs his sharpie-stained hand.

"It was lovely to meet you, Timothy. You're a great listener and an even greater snog."

She leans up, rising on tip toes, aims for his mouth and misses, lips pressing against half his chin and beard.

He realigns, kisses her good and proper.

It's not entirely romantic, too much a loss of what could be for that, but still enjoyable.

His eyes are closed when she retreats, keeps them closed as the door holds account of her disappearance.

He can pretend sleep, but he can't deny the dream is over.

He's disappointed, like any woken from fantasy.

No matter how he feels otherwise, he's still human, and humans always want things to last just a little longer.

* * *

He's visiting his sister when he sees her again.

Clad in black and scowls, she sticks out against the white hospital walls like a sore and prickly thumb.

"Tim," she says, surprised.

"Iracebeth," he replies, equally perplexed. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting my sister."

His mouth opens in worry, wondering what misfortune might have _accidentally_ happened to the poor woman.

"She's a _doctor_ , idiot."

She steals his coffee at the insult, pouting at him for the added injury of too much sugar.

"Came to apologize for thinking she'd steal my husband, bungled it up. I think she's mad at me now."

"Can't imagine why." She pokes him in the ribs at his snark.

"Well, what are _you_ here for?" She asks. He winces.

"Came to visit my sister... She's not a doctor."

Her eyes widen in sympathy; he wonders why he feels comfortable enough around this stranger he's kissed twice to forego lying.

She doesn't say how sorry she is for him, doesn't ask questions, doesn't cloy him with physical comfort.

He could kiss her again in gratitude.

Could kiss her anytime though, for any reason.

She hands back his coffee, lipstick smudging the styrofoam.

"Show me your favorite place here," she commands imperiously, and he's glad for the distraction.

"My pleasure."

* * *

An empty and echoing hall, time is counted precisely in evenly spaced ticks.

It's his favorite place.

Things make sense when passing life can be accounted for.

"Something just doesn't add up," Iracebeth states from her position on the floor, head comfortably rested on his lower thigh.

"And what's that?"

"You deeply love your sister; you don't even have any issues or guilt with her. You work religiously, and you're completely legal. There's nothing _wrong_ with you."

He chuckles because she sounds very nearly disappointed.

"I'm a machine, remember? To work, I have to be flawless."

"So you think you're flawless?"

"Have to be."

She laughs and smiles up at him, satisfied.

"Arrogant and a perfectionist. I deem you sinful enough to be acceptable."

He laughs too, she's a bit absurd and magical, and if he doesn't kiss her soon he might just crack.

So he does.

She accepts it, nipping his lower lip playfully, and he's never felt so alive.

"Iracebeth," he gasps when he comes up for air. "I think you're going to be the death of me."

"Do you mind?" She asks, those biting teeth worrying her own lip.

"Not one tiny bit."

* * *

He sees her much more after that.

Still works like mad, but sometimes she visits him, black coffee and shining laptop in tow, and only _slightly_ distracts him from work.

Wilkins shakes his head at the flirting but says nothing, covering for him when Iracebeth gets the notion Tim needs a break.

Her breaks consist of museums, she'd been elated to find Tim quite the history buff, and mobile phone chess wars and snogging.

Lots and lots of snogging.

Innocent and needy and intoxicating all at once.

She's quite the clingy little creature, and more often than not he finds himself constantly touching her, whether from intertwined hands or playing with her cherry brown curls.

He's never thought himself very physical, but now it seems all he can do to not wrap an arm around her tiny shoulders and hold on just a little tighter.

The first time she barges into his apartment she's ranting, signed divorce papers in one white fist, and kisses him so spectacularly he sees stars for hours afterward.

He sees her house later, when her eyes have lightened and her grabby hands pull him in, and he stays the night.

She's not perfect, she's moody and self-focused and prone to fits of darkness, but he finds he doesn't mind.

She pries a scope of emotion from him he's never felt before.

Machine turned to man.

Days turn to weeks to months, and he is happy. He'd been happy before, but this is a different depth entirely.

He sends her a flower every once in a while. Red roses, her favorites.

Discovers she likes tiny things, miniature clocks in particular, and spends his time making them when the shop is relatively empty.

He's no engineer, but he's always been rather handy, and the delighted squeak he'd elicited from his first clock experiment was more than worth the hours of past mistakes.

She's starting to weave all throughout his days, and if eternity stretched out and showed him a forever where she's in it, biting her lip as she furiously types on her computer keyboard, he'd call it heaven.

* * *

She's smiling and kissing him when she enters his apartment, throwing herself onto his couch with easy familiarity. Watches him cook dinner, she'd been forbidden from the kitchen ever since she accidentally set off the sprinklers (she can cook up a good story, nothing else), and happily chatters on about a TV script she's currently working on, and his chest is so full he could burst.

"I love you."

It falls off his lips easily, completely unrehearsed and earnest.

Time halts as she turns startled eyes to his, and he feels the mistake jaggedly.

She gapes, and for once words elude her. It's too long a pause.

"At least breathe." He says quickly, panic steaming his brain.

"You don't love me." She chokes out, jumping from the couch as if scalded, puts more distance between them, and he doesn't understand.

"Of course I do," things keep speeding up and slowing down, it's leaving him breathless.

"You can't."

"Why not?"

He reaches out for her, she takes another step back, head shaking in rapid denial.

"You weren't supposed to—we were just having—we weren't even dating."

He blinks.

It hurts.

"We weren't? But we—I only thought—didn't you feel anything?"

He takes a step closer and she stays, but her eyes are wide and alarmed, like an animal caught in the headlights, waiting for the inevitable crash.

"I never thought we'd get this far," she confesses, wetting her lips.

She might as well have plucked out his heart and stomped one heeled foot all over it.

"Were you—am I a rebound?"

"No!" She takes a step, hesitates. Takes a moment to gather her thoughts, gives up as they scatter further from her reach.

"I just figured... I thought at some point you'd finally tire of my imperfections and I'd find some flaw I couldn't live with and we'd separate with the least amount of damage."

"You wanted us to fail, before we'd even started?"

She keeps biting her lip and he wishes she'd stop because looking at her is painful and she's _all_ he's seeing.

"Not fail, just lose the fantasy. I—this isn't _real_ , Tim. Nothing so perfect is, or it doesn't last, and I can't afford the fall. Not again. I just—I don't know what to say."

Her twitching hands stop in defeat, and he feels too much.

It overloads his system.

Man back to machine, machine rusting over.

"You've said enough."

"I'm sorry."

It's the first time she's ever said those words to him, and it _aches_.

He leads her to the door, careful not to touch her.

"Learn how to be happy."

It's hoarse and it hurts, but worse, he _means_ it.

Even damaged, he loves her.

But he can't bear this.

He closes the door.

Hears each tentative step that takes her permanently further from him.

He stands tall for one brave moment.

Then, he shatters.

* * *

Time goes slowly now.

He quits the flower shop, manages a bookstore and cafe instead.

The pay is better, less hours though, and he finds there's too much nothing to do.

It causes his mind to drift.

Drift to smoke and lips and—he won't go there anymore.

Does anyway, pretends the legs walking around his head belong to someone else.

Things go back to normal, only there's a depression in his chest where his heart feels absent and he often finds himself staring into some distant place, heartsick like all those fools he'd walked past and pitied before.

He starts reading horrors again, but never hers.

She's got a new one out, so his customers say, best one yet, though much tamer than her others.

Something about a demon rising in love with an angel, but with every step it rises, it plucks a feather from its lover's wings. Horrified for bringing the angel down to an equal level, it flees in search of new feathers to give back.

He doesn't know the ending, doesn't ask for it, and his customers never fill him in.

* * *

One day out of the many that slink on, Wilkins visits him, right in the store, holding a bouquet of geraniums, foxgloves, meadowsweet, yellow carnations, and orange lilies.

"Got a weird call in," he says, mustache wrinkled in confusion. "Customer asked for me to send these to you, but asked if you wanted to send the note back to them? It doesn't make much sense."

He reads the card, sees the calligraphy, hears the apology in the curse.

"No, it doesn't. The customer sounds entirely bonkers."

But he sends the note back, along with the flowers.

He's determined to forget the entire incident.

Against his will and better judgement, he finds himself smiling.

* * *

More time passes.

He visits Alice when he's not needed at the cafe, reads her bedtime stories, tells her the weather outside, tries to make her dreams funny with his amusing tales of bookstore customers.

Doesn't talk about a certain woman, even though Alice had been subjected to terrible poetry of her for months before.

He's so very tired.

Orders a coffee from the cafeteria, now accustomed to it black, and heads to his designated castle, his sanctuary from the rest of the world.

* * *

"Timothy."

It's soft and low, he turns to the sound in reflex.

And she's there before him, biting her colored lips, slim fingers twisting at the edges of her gray shirt.

"Iracebeth."

She's painfully beautiful, he winces as his sluggish heart begins to beat again.

"Visiting Alice?" She asks.

She'd met the fragile sleeping beauty before, confided to her every plot point of her next book while Timothy was forced to get lunch alone.

He nods, tries to wrench his gaze from her slight figure, does not succeed at all.

"Mirana just had a baby," she says. He wonders how he can feel both awkward and comforted in her presence at the same time.

"She and Stayne have been trying for years. That squirt is going to be spoiled absolutely rotten."

"Who's Stayne?" He asks against his will. It's not his fault. She's a storyteller and the rest of the world's natural instinct is to listen.

"I'm afraid that's a rather long story," she says, shy as she scuffs a shoe on the squeaky tiles.

He pats the space next to him, she collapses close with a sigh.

"I tried happiness, you know."

"And?"

"And it was _fucking hell_. Everything felt temporary and I was walking on fragile glass over a cliff. And then it was only hell. A thin beam instead of glass. I fell off a few times. And then, it was ok that I fell. And I got used to being alone."

He looks down at her in slight disbelief, she grins sheepishly.

"I got a cat."

Air escapes his lungs, sounds suspiciously like a laugh, if he still did that.

"He's a cheeky bugger too. Likes to hide from me."

"Next, you'll tell me you got a dog."

She grimaces.

"Not bloody likely."

He's smiling at her profanity and she's smiling back and everything feels like old habit, and he finally looks away.

Wills this fantasy to leave him.

But then her hand is warm and real in his, and she stares at his capable fingers.

He stares at her.

"I think I could be alone now. Forever, if I had to," she says carefully.

It's a twist to his insides, and he wills himself to keep from bolting.

"But I really, _really_ don't want to." She adds, gripping his hand tighter.

"And, if I had to be alone, I'd want to be alone with you."

He kisses her.

It's a long time coming, but it's like coming home.

He kisses her until he's got a crick in his neck from leaning so far to the left.

"I'd like to date you, if you still want that," she says, thumbs his lip gently, wiping off the red residue.

"I want that."

He's kissing her again and she's melting into his very being.

Then she's pulling away, hands him a daisy. A pretty blush spreading across her face like a dawning sunrise.

"Figured I should woo you. And…maybe…can we go a bit slower?"

He smiles, twirling the stem between his fingers, places it behind her ear.

"Ok."

Then he kisses her once more, just because he can.

"I can wait a little longer, darling."

Kisses her again, because she still tastes like fiction, now blurred between the threads of reality, and it's even better.

"After all," he smiles, electric blue eyes shining and filled with her.

"We have the time."

* * *

 _And there you have it! Let me know if you liked it, or whether I should just stick to cannon and give up on AU's forever. ;)  
_ _Either way, this was fun!  
Thanks for reading!_


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